Laura Blumenfeld

EXCLUSIVE
  • Prize-Winning Middle East Correspondent
  • Former Senior Policy Advisor on Secretary of State John Kerry’s Israeli-Palestinian Negotiating Team
  • New York Times Bestselling Author, 'Revenge: A Story of Hope'
  • Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic Studies, Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies

In 1986, Laura Blumenfeld's father was shot in Jerusalem by a member of a rebel faction of the PLO responsible for attacks on several tourists in the Old City. Her father lived, but Blumenfeld's desire for revenge haunted her. Revenge: A Story of Hope is her story.

Laura Blumenfeld is a best-selling author, Middle East analyst, and a senior fellow at the The Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies. She previously served in the US State Department as senior policy advisor for the Middle East Peace Process. Blumenfeld spent two decades as a reporter for the Washington Post, covering the Middle East, national security, and presidential politics; she has also been a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a public policy fellow at the Wilson Center. She is the author of Revenge: A Story of Hope (2002), a global study of the dynamics of revenge and an account of her search for the Palestinian terrorist who shot her father. Blumenfeld holds a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a master's degree from Columbia University.

 


Laura Blumenfeld headshot
Past Hosts Include:
  • AIPAC
  • Palm Beach Synagogue
  • Jewish Federation of Boca Raton
  • American Society for Technion, Chicago, IL
  • Temple Beth Shalom
  • AJC
  • Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas
  • JCC of Greater Washington
  • Jewish Community Center of Dutchess County
  • Dominican Center at Marywood
Rave Reviews About Laura Blumenfeld as a Speaker
Your candid presentation made real for us the possibility of transformation and forgiveness as an alternative to destructive revenge. Your journey is truly a story of hope for all of us. Those who attended found the evening an enjoyable and reflective event. Thank you again for bringing this much needed message to our community, and beyond.

Moderating - A conversation with NYT Columnist Thomas Friedman | Johns Hopkins SAIS [54:40] - Get Sharable Link
Talks & Conversations with Laura Blumenfeld
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Revenge: A Story of Hope

In this talk, Laura Blumenfeld gives audiences a personal, and intellectual tour of dark urges often denied about the personal passions behind public events, and about the thin line between love and hate. ...

In this talk, Laura Blumenfeld gives audiences a personal, and intellectual tour of dark urges often denied about the personal passions behind public events, and about the thin line between love and hate.

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Biography

Laura Blumenfeld, The New York Times best selling author and  prize-winning Middle East correspondent, was a Senior Policy Adviser on Secretary Kerry's Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations team from October 2013-February 2015. She is currently a Scholar in Residence at Georgetown University, and a Public Policy Fellow at The Wilson Center. 

Blumenfeld covered national security, presidential politics, Israel and the Middle East for The Washington Post as a distinguished senior staff writer for twenty years. She is the author of The New York Times best seller, Revenge: A Story of Hope. Revenge has been translated into nine languages, and has been excerpted in a range of publications, from People to The New Yorker. As The New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas L. Friedman wrote, "Laura Blumenfeld has the eye of a reporter, the soul of a novelist, and the passion of an activist. She brings all three to bear superbly." She also authored a chapter in the book What Israel Means To Me, edited by Alan Dershowitz.  

Blumenfeld has lectured on counter-terrorism, military ethics, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and is a frequent speaker at universities including Princeton, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins and the U.S. Naval Academy. She served as a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at The German Marshall Fund, where she specialized in security policy.

Blumenfeld's work has been developed for screen adaptation by George Clooney, Madonna, Ellen Pompeo, HBO, Universal Pictures, ABC and CBS Television. Showtime aired an hour-long documentary on This American Life, based on her feature story. At The Washington Post, she wrote a regular column about senior government officials for the Federal Page, called "Off Camera." She has also written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, Conde Nast Traveler UK, and the Financial Times. She has appeared on Good Morning America, The Lehrer News Hour, The Today Show, CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera, Oprah and CCTV. She has been interviewed extensively on NPR, the BBC and other radio shows.

Blumenfeld holds a master’s degree in international affairs specializing in the Middle East from Columbia University, which she attended on full-scholarship as a Mort Zuckerman Future World Leaders Fellow. She graduated with honors with a degree in English literature from Harvard College and studied Middle East languages and civilizations for a year at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.  

Blumenfeld lives in Washington D.C.